Although the landscapes Savage creates are highly stylized, they have a softness and gentle humor that will capture the...
In this strong graphic treatment of a traditional theme, 10 Halloween pumpkins are spirited away or destroyed one by one by various seasonally appropriate, sometimes-scary entities: a scarecrow, a mummy, a bolt of lightning, a hungry ghost, alligators in a pond, pirates (“Arrr!”), an owl, a witch and a spider.
In a visual style reminiscent of 1950s horror tales, Savage creates a highly dramatic and sensational sequence using strong color contrasts, including, of course, Halloween orange and black. Homely scenes of country life—fields, clothes on a line, a spooky mansion, a stormy churchyard—and more exotic ones—a witch’s kitchen, pirate skeletons on a stormy ocean—are all rendered in a strong, airbrushed graphic style. While the overall mood is scary and grotesque, there are light touches in several features, including the cat that appears on every spread, the alligators that morph from rock look-alikes to snapping monsters that consume the pumpkin, the mummy who mummifies a pumpkin and the doughboy ghost who makes a pumpkin into pie. The simple rhymes of the countdown have a sweetly repetitive nursery-rhyme quality, and they will help to reassure children who may be a little apprehensive about Halloween, as well as aiding counting and subtraction skills.
Although the landscapes Savage creates are highly stylized, they have a softness and gentle humor that will capture the imaginations of young children and add to their anticipation. (Picture book. 3-5)Pub Date: Aug. 29, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-8037-3938-3
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Dial Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 20, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2013
Let these crayons go back into their box.
The Crayons return to celebrate Easter.
Six crayons (Red, Orange, Yellow, Esteban, who is green and wears a yellow cape, White, and Blue) each take a shape and scribble designs on it. Purple, perplexed and almost angry, keeps asking why no one is creating an egg, but the six friends have a great idea. They take the circle decorated with red shapes, the square adorned with orange squiggles “the color of the sun,” the triangle with yellow designs, also “the color of the sun” (a bit repetitious), a rectangle with green wavy lines, a white star, about which Purple remarks: “DID you even color it?” and a rhombus covered with blue markings and slap the shapes onto a big, light-brown egg. Then the conversation turns to hiding the large object in plain sight. The joke doesn’t really work, the shapes are not clear enough for a concept book, and though colors are delineated, it’s not a very original color book. There’s a bit of clever repartee. When Purple observe that Esteban’s green rectangle isn’t an egg, Esteban responds, “No, but MY GOSH LOOK how magnificent it is!” Still, that won’t save this lackluster book, which barely scratches the surface of Easter, whether secular or religious. The multimedia illustrations, done in the same style as the other series entries, are always fun, but perhaps it’s time to retire these anthropomorphic coloring implements. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
Let these crayons go back into their box. (Picture book. 3-5)Pub Date: Feb. 7, 2023
ISBN: 978-0-593-62105-9
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Philomel
Review Posted Online: Oct. 11, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
Plotless and pointless, the book clearly exists only because its celebrity author wrote it.
A succession of animal dads do their best to teach their young to say “Dada” in this picture-book vehicle for Fallon.
A grumpy bull says, “DADA!”; his calf moos back. A sad-looking ram insists, “DADA!”; his lamb baas back. A duck, a bee, a dog, a rabbit, a cat, a mouse, a donkey, a pig, a frog, a rooster, and a horse all fail similarly, spread by spread. A final two-spread sequence finds all of the animals arrayed across the pages, dads on the verso and children on the recto. All the text prior to this point has been either iterations of “Dada” or animal sounds in dialogue bubbles; here, narrative text states, “Now everybody get in line, let’s say it together one more time….” Upon the turn of the page, the animal dads gaze round-eyed as their young across the gutter all cry, “DADA!” (except the duckling, who says, “quack”). Ordóñez's illustrations have a bland, digital look, compositions hardly varying with the characters, although the pastel-colored backgrounds change. The punch line fails from a design standpoint, as the sudden, single-bubble chorus of “DADA” appears to be emanating from background features rather than the baby animals’ mouths (only some of which, on close inspection, appear to be open). It also fails to be funny.
Plotless and pointless, the book clearly exists only because its celebrity author wrote it. (Picture book. 3-5)Pub Date: June 9, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-250-00934-0
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Feiwel & Friends
Review Posted Online: April 14, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
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